


hollow

by sparkling_cider



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, I was in a mood when I wrote this, Identity Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 21:13:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17874944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkling_cider/pseuds/sparkling_cider
Summary: She is not, exactly, a cynic. It’s hard to be a pessimist when all the worst things have already happened to you.





	hollow

She is not, exactly, a cynic. It's hard to be a pessimist when all the worst things have already happened to you.

Her name is Natasha, and it is Natalia. Any name

can be hers, which perhaps means she doesn't actually have a name. Nothing sounds right except for _Agent_. _Agent_ fits like a glove, like a painted-on pair of pants, like a gift she never asked for but knows exactly what do with how that she has. Her name is Agent.

Not thinking is how she survived. She's told people otherwise—therapists, coworkers, interrogators—has spouted lines about hope and courage and never giving up like nobody's business. Which it isn't, which is why she never tells the truth, which is why no one knows it. But one of the first lessons she was taught was how to shut her mind off to anything that wasn't relevant to the mission, how to keep unnecessary thoughts at bay. More than her combat training or her marksmanship, that's the skill that brought her through the most.

There's no such thing as better. There were a few years, a period in between one thing and the other, where she thought she might recover. When she began to lower the barriers she had constructed in her own mind and let herself into the secrets she had kept without knowing. That period is over. She had made an error in judgment, and she would not make the same mistake again.

Underneath the humanity—the smiles and frowns and kindness and cruelty—that's as man-made as four of the bones in her right hand, there is nothing. That is not to say _she_ is nothing. She is many things: trained, dangerous, damaged, invaluable. She is too many things to name. But once you get below the things she has been made to be and the things she has made herself into, there is a void. A lack, an emptiness. The place where, for someone else, there is—not a soul, nor a kind magical truthful inner self, for she believes in neither, but a few core convictions. Treasured memories. Repressed emotions. Forgotten loves and still-burning hatreds. She has none of these, not even for pretend. She chooses and discards feelings as needed, regularly dusts out the crevices of her mind for unnecessary scraps, changes allegiances at will. She has no core convictions because she has no core. It would not benefit her to be disgusted or horrified by this, so she is not.

Natasha defines herself through what she is and what she is not. She is not a person, not in the usual sense of the word. She is a special agent. She is not okay. She is the best.


End file.
